I stand by this:
In any case, a solution for making better sequels was already found years ago: in a way, TESB was not a SW film (or at least not like the original SW), yet most of us love it. Why? Because it was well crafted, it was able to stay true to the original movie, while expanding it with new concepts: a perfect balance.
So it was possible. I just wish they’d kept trying going into that bold direction for the ST.The thing is, though, Empire still kept the same characters intact, and along with Jedi, it finished a furthered story of our heroes’ fight against the Empire. We still had Luke and Vader, and the same specific conflict to finish, so it didn’t get old in the three films that it took. In the ST we have new characters to fill the same old roles, and a new conflict to emulate the same old conflict, so it feels oddly contrived, and not very original, and it’s getting old. From my point of view the ST is evi… I mean it’ll be impossible to make the ST work because of this problem.
What problem? I can understand if you are talking about JJ Abrams’ take (though I definetly don’t agree), but the way you word it is as if any sequel trilogy will be terrible even if it has some of the best writing, cinematography, special effects, and acting of the series (like the Force Awakens).
If you look at all movies in the flat closed-minded way naysayers look at the Force Awakens, nothing is original.
Originality is subjective. Those who have have never seen Flash Gordon or Hidden Fortress or read a space opera think the original Star Wars is extremely original, the first of its kind! This is as far from the truth as you can get. Star Wars was designed to be unoriginal. It’s a mix of everthing George Lucas loved and put into the context of Joseph Campbell’s monomyth, the common story behind all stories.
What JJ Abrams did is exactly what Lucas did : take what he loved and mix it all together. That’s why there’s stuff from all of the original trilogy in the Force Awakens and why the original Star Wars has stuff from Westerns, samurai movies, Science Fiction, and every genre you can think of.
But even in the Force Awakens and the original Star Wars, there’s little differences from what it was meant to copy. This is the only way originality can be objective. If you are subjective, nothing is original. If you are objective, everything is original
To me, originality barely matters at all because trying to be original lead to horrible films and great films so it’s barely a positive at all and if it is, it’s likely subjective.